Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a board handling apparatus that assists in transporting boards such as 4×8 sheets of plywood, MDF, particle board, chipboard, blackboard, plastic, hardboard, OSB, stirling board, melamine, MDO, acrylic, granite and similar products. More specifically the board handling apparatus is configured to extent the working life of master craftsmen in their late years of the trade and to continuously prevent injuries in workmen in their early years of the trade.
Carpentry is one of the oldest skilled trades that is still used to this day and, despite growth in automation, furniture manufacturing remains labor-intensive. Injury rates for the industry in the U.S. are about 50 percent higher than the national average due to the hazards of operating equipment and handling heavy products. These injuries can disable master craftsmen and cause high replacement training related expenses.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,305,219 to Rhodes teaches a building board or dry wall handler and lifter. The handler and lifter taught in Rhodes has large dimensions being both extremely wide and tall and has a complex lifting mechanism. Thus the Rhodes taught invention is expensive to manufacture, complicated in design and has a large footprint.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,815,132 to Stone teaches another board handling and lifting apparatus. Stone teaches a more compact configuration than Rhodes however, Stone teaches an even more complex lifting device and thus is expensive to manufacture and is subject to failure in its lifting mechanism due to the complex design.
There is a need in the industry for a board handling tool that is compact and thus easy to store and less expensive to manufacture. In addition, the majority of the cost in manufacturing the known prior art board handling apparatuses relates to the incorporation of the board lifting device. Therefore there is a need for a simple board lifting mechanism which is inexpensive to manufacture, robust, simple to operate and has a high reliability rate.